Pay Cable Prices Going Up, 'Day of Reckoning' Approaches

We learned earlier this week that cable providers lost 5 million subscribers since 2010, a partial result from the rise of streaming and online content options.

Now, Variety reports that pay cable giants will be passing higher prices on to subscribers with no end in sight.

Nine companies — Disney, Fox, Time Warner, Comcast/NBCUniversal, CBS, Viacom, Discovery, Scripps and AMC — control about 90% of the professionally produced TV content in the U.S., spending an estimated $45 billion per year on that content, according to Juenger. “To date, it has been impossible for a distributor to assemble a pay-TV offering that can successfully attract and retain subscribers without having the content from all of these nine companies.”

So, that means pay TV bills will continue to climb faster than the overall cost of living for U.S. consumers.

This comes at a time when Netflix is beefing up its original content, Amazon Prime is doing the same and new players (Target, Redbox) are entering the streaming space.

It’s not panic time … yet for the pay cable giants. That day will come, Variety warns.

… pay-TV players are facing a day of reckoning in one form or another.